Practicing??

I'm a self taught guitarist. I've been playing for about 3 years. I was wondering what I should be practicing because I realize I have made a lot of bad habits over time. Please tell me what to practice and how long!

Well, I don't use a pick and when I did take guitar lessons in the summer of '07 my teacher said I should use a pick a lot. And also when I play pinky always touches the pickguard and I just hold it there. I only feel like I have bad habits, no one has ever told me I have.

Well, I don't use a pick and when I did take guitar lessons in the summer of '07 my teacher said I should use a pick a lot. And also when I play pinky always touches the pickguard and I just hold it there. I only feel like I have bad habits, no one has ever told me I have.

Hah. The pinky-pickguard relationship is called anchoring. There's a lot of debate about it really.

A lot of people frown upon it, but if you look around you'll notice most mega-shredders use it as a technique.

There's no right and wrong. We all have our own little quirks.

I have nothing valuable to put here. Nothing more valuable than blank space, anyway.

Well, I don't use a pick and when I did take guitar lessons in the summer of '07 my teacher said I should use a pick a lot. And also when I play pinky always touches the pickguard and I just hold it there. I only feel like I have bad habits, no one has ever told me I have.

Wait, it's a BAD thing to play without a pick?! There is absolutely nothing wrong with that! There are many guitarists who play without a pick.

As for the second part, I'm not really sure about that.

The thing I always like to say is that there is no such thing as bad technique, there is only playing a technique badly.

"I've been visiting a psychiatrist for some time now. He plays mind games. He asks things like 'do you masturbate'? and I say 'do you breathe?'." Ozzy - 1975

theres nothing wrong with playing without a pick, im pretty sure mark knopfler uses his fingers, could be wrong though, and i know dave mustaine uses the anchoring technique so he knows what string he's on

Practical (actual playing)Scales are your next aim for practical work (IMO).

Scales you need to learn:

Pentatonic Scale (there are 5 different "boxes" of the pentatonic scale that mover further up the neck as you use them.)Major Scale (also in different positions/octaves, like the "boxes" on the pentatonic scale)Minor Scale (similar to the pentatonic with a few extra notes, again learn the positions/octaves)

Next are chords, and you seem to have made some headway, so that's good.Chords:

Major Chords [Open (meaning played with some open strings, not barre chords.)]Minor Chords, also OpenMajor Chords [Barred (meaning played with no open strings as transferable patterns, the simpler versions are also known as "power" chords)]Minor Chords, also Barred

Picking: Standard/Alternate/Sweeping/HybridHammer Ons/Pull Offs (this means a slur if you're musically inclined; if not there are a load of good lessons on this site; just type them in search under lessons.)BendsScratch muting (makes a chcka sound when you mute the strings with your left hand)Palm muting (listen to metallica; the chug chug sound is caused by palm muting)

How to/ what is an EQClean, Distortion and O.DPickupsValve (Tube)/ Solid State/ Hybrid amps

--------------------The stuff in bold is advanced, and so should really be done after the rest of it is good.

I think that's enough to be going along with. Obviously don't try and learn it all at once, you'll overload yourself. Just try learning a bit a week, you'll be fine, and you'll get better with practise.

Good Luck,

Use the search bar please. I'm not about to start typing this again.

Lol, in fact I think i'll just copy and paste this for every answer I can get away with